CNX Nifty has shaped up as a largest single financial product in India, with an ecosystem comprising: exchange traded funds (onshore and offshore), exchange-traded futures and options (at NSE in India and at SGX and CME abroad), other index funds and OTC derivatives (mostly offshore).

The CNX Nifty covers 22 sectors of the Indian economy and offers investment managers exposure to the Indian market in one portfolio. During 2008-12, CNX Nifty 50 Index share of NSE market capitalisation fell from 65% to 29%[1] due to the rise of sectoral indices like CNX Bank, CNX IT, CNX Mid Cap, etc. The CNX Nifty 50 Index gives 29.70% weightage to financial services, 0.73% weightage to industrial manufacturing and nil weightage to agricultural sector.[2]

The CNX Nifty index is a free float market capitalisation weighted index. The index was initially calculated on full market capitalisation methodology. From June 26, 2009, the computation was changed to free float methodology. The base period for the CNX Nifty index is November 3, 1995, which marked the completion of one year of operations of National Stock Exchange Equity Market Segment. The base value of the index has been set at 1000, and a base capital of Rs 2.06 trillion.[3] The CNX Nifty Index was developed by Ajay Shah and Susan Thomas.